respect

This is a guest blog from a colleague I met at National SPeaker Association UNconference. Bonnie’s discussion is about a person who takes the ideas of others and promotes them as her own. In my next blog, we’ll be discussing people who lead out of mutual fear vs. mutual trust. Nancy

Fear, concern and even intimidation are very real feelings that develop in many work groups. It’s not uncommon to see a group in which “ladder climbing”, striving, and metaphorically speaking, scratching, is done in order to put one’s needs and desires ahead of others’. I saw this recently in a group where I was consulting. The operations manager was determined to be seen and heard above all others, to the point of bypassing her co-workers and staff members to achieve her goals. She was known to take others’ ideas and present them to leadership as her own. What drives this type of unethical behavior? [Read more…] about Unethical “Ladder Climbing” in the Workplace

Have you ever asked yourself that question? I have – lots of times! It’s not easy, but I nearly always end up going back to my ‘True North’ and that enables me to reorient myself and get back on track.

If you are looking at a correctly calibrated compass, it will always point north. No matter what direction you turn, the compass will remain true to north – True North. For me, ‘True North’ is the deeply-held values that form the foundation for how I live my life and the choices I make. They define my “rules of engagement” when I interact with the world. When I find myself asking the question above, I go back to my core values and align myself to what’s most important in my life – my True North.

Want to join me in being an integrity fanatic? Over the next two weeks, we’ll talk about what integrity fanatics do – and how they practice hard call courage.

Since integrity is doing what you say you will do, (Kouzes and Posner), figuring out what’s most important to you so you can align your words and actions is key.It involves some deep soul searching to determine what values are most important to you. Start by listing your top five values – then prioritize the list, so you know which of those values rises to the top. Then write a brief description of what those values look like in action. One of my core values is faith – and here’s what that means to me: [Read more…] about True North produces True Grit

A bald cardinal lives in our trees, feeding at the feeders and bathing in the birdbath. A quirk of nature gave him a body gloriously robed in brilliant scarlet, and a black head with an orange beak, but no red crown of feathers. He looks a little like a miniature red vulture. This cardinal doesn’t spend his days worrying about what the other cardinals think of him. He feeds, he bathes, and he flies – going on about life oblivious to his “different” looks. The other birds treat him no differently. [Read more…] about What if we didn’t worry about being different?